Culpepper thoughts…

I’m not a huge fan of Culpepper and agree – TT would have to make sure it is written into Culpepper’s contract that the arm roll thing is not allowed on the team. He fizzled in Oakland and was mediocre to poor in Miami before that. And, how would it look to sign a washed up veteran on the same day the Vikes pick up Jared Allen (granted they did trade away their future at the same time)?!?!

In the interest of full disclosure, however, I must admit that prior to last year, I did think that picking up Culpepper would be a good idea. While again, I’m not so sure about the move now, 1-poor-achieving -year removed from Oakland, here’s are some reasons why it may not be a horrible decision: 1) if he is put into an offense with playmakers, he’s proven he can do a sufficient job – and the Pack has playmakers; 2) he’s huge and really difficult to bring down; 3) he’s had experience in the NFC North; 4) while some of those passes were crappy and Moss made great plays, some of them were long bombs thrown well leading to some devastating Packer losses; 4) he always seemed to use tight end options effectively; and 5) Favre probably would have struggled at Oakland last year.

Again, I’m not a big fan of his, but I don’t think it would hurt to bring him in and see first-hand if he can still compete. I’d much rather have him than some inexperienced guy.

5 Responses to “Culpepper thoughts…”

Hate this move. I could see the value of a guy who has some knowledge to impart, but once DC’s physical skills (and HOF caliber teammates) disappeared so did his effectiveness. A washed up wily vet would be one thing- this looks like Tim Couch pt. II.

and for waht it’s worth, i think the Vikes made a classic blunder with Allen. You only need to look at Shawn Alexander’s getting cut to see the foolishness of overpaying for past performance. At least that only cost the seahawks money, traidng away your future in order to add an older guy to the part of the team that arguably already the strongest part of your team is how mediocrity perpetuates itself. My prediction is that the Vikes will get a lot of great preseason coverage as the sleeper team to watch but when the inevitable wave of injuries hits (and it almost always hits) a lack of depth will prove their undoing. there is a slight chance that they will get lucky in the short term health-wise, but with a guy like T. Jackson at QB now would not seem to be the time to mortgage the future on a short term gamble.

Not a fan of this, even if it goes no further than this visit. I haven’t looked closely at the free agent QB market, but there has to be a better option than this. I would also agree with Steve’s previous post about wishing horrible things about him while in MN.

Again, not wild about possibly picking up Culpepper, but considering the present alternatives, I still don’t think it’s a bad idea to at least bring him in and see where he is physically. Even if his past success was largely due to having Randy Moss, anyone who has a season of throwing for 4700 yards and completing 69% of his passes does have some talent. And in Green Bay, he’d be surrounded by some pretty serious talent too. When we didn’t make a push for someone like Billy Volek, I kind of figured we’d get into a situation where eventually we’d just need bodies in camp. It’s a hard place to be considering we haven’t had to consider it for 17 years.

And I have to disagree with RayMidge when you compare the Alexander situation to the Allen situation. Allen is only 26 and for his position has a good number of years left. Alexander was already getting up there in RB age and he’s been overrated for his whole career. He wasn’t even that good when he won the MVP – I could have had 20 touchdowns behind that O-line. I agree that the Vikings gave up too much, but defensive end has actually been a somewhat inconsistent position for the Vikes (mostly due to injury) and bringing Allen in will bring consistency and serious pass rush ability. (And though only 26, Allen has already put together 4 solid NFL years – averaging nearly 11 sacks a year).